Vale
by Achernar-amnis-faux
Summary: Nobody said it was going to be easy: letting go was just the right thing to do. And a year can pass painfully slowly when both of them are left to deal with the aftermath of a separation [Postcanon, Oneshot, mild puzzleshipping (romance/bromance whatever)]


**Vale**

_(I was going to post this yesterday but I accidentally started a new fanfic instead… way to go I guess)_

YES! _Weird melancholic depressing angsty oneshots are my life! So here's one for you, my dear readers: this is what I think may have happened both to Yugi and Atem when the pharaoh left. A slow, painful recovery with just some glints of puzzleshipping because I can._

_Please, listen to this song before/during/after reading: _Ti sento vivere, _by_ Max Pezzali_ (if you can't find a translation just message me for one because the lyrics are *super* important)_

Yugioh _and _Ti sento vivere _don't belong to me and never will,_

_(You may need tissues reading the last part, it's up to you)_

_Enjoy!_

Atque in perpetuum, ave atque vale

* * *

And Yugi feels it in the way his hands lower the doorknob the day he comes back home from Egypt. It's the first time he has spent so much time abroad, away from his house and his life. And when he steps inside the small entrance and takes off his shoes as grandpa enters the kitchen, Yugi can smell the scent of his own house. Something that has always lingered in there, but that he has never noticed. Something you can see yet you cannot see.

And Yugi feels it when the first of his tears stars to tickle the inside of his left eye, when it is pushing on Yugi's violet cornea, pleading for Yugi to free it and its sister tears. But Yugi doesn't want to cry yet, he knows he will surrender sooner or later, because he needs, he wants to cry. Just not yet. So Yugi steps inside his house, moving around like a guest who sees everything for the first time: the dust on the sofa, the fingerprints on the glass of the photos, the furniture. It's all so new, so fascinating…. Yugi is a stranger in his own house.

And Yugi feels it when he sees the stairs and as if called by a siren's voice, a chant as ancient as the world itself, he puts his hand on the rail and slowly climbs the steps to his own room. The tear is still there, pleading and twinkling. But Yugi murmurs "not yet" and it silences itself for a little time, leaving Yugi alone with his steps and his memories. He reaches the door and places his hand on its wooden surface. The wood seems alien, touches different. It's cold and hostile and Yugi is a stranger again, in his own room.

And Yugi feels it when he lowers a doorknob for the second time that day, the one to his own room, and when he hesitantly steps inside a wave of scents and memories assaults him. The bed, the desk, the window, the floor, the ceiling, the toys, the cards, the books. It's everywhere, overwhelming and frightening at the same time. Something Yugi cherishes and wants to treasure forever and yet he just wishes he could let go and forget about everything that has happened to him in the last two years. The tear starts again to push on Yugi's cornea, and Yugi wants to mumble "not yet" again. But he can't. It's too much. It's everywhere.

And Yugi feels it in the very air he's breathing. _He_ is everywhere. Atem is everywhere.

He's in the way the books are arranged on the desk, the way the sheets are lazily wrapped around the bed, in the way Yugi's reflection is revealing Yugi his own watering eyes. In the way the tears silently, quietly stream down Yugi's face. He doesn't even know he is crying until he looks at himself in the window. Atem is everywhere, the room, the house, Yugi himself… they _are_ Atem. And Yugi can feel Atem living in him. It's like he never left. And it's something he can't get rid of, as much as Yugi wants to in this very moment, because it would be like taking away the very blood that flows in his veins.

So Yugi leaves his spot in front of the window and moves his steps to the bed. He lets himself fall on the soft messy surface and quietly lets the tears go on, wetting his face, his sheets, his hands. He lets his lungs breathe in his scent, his mind feel his presence. Because, when Yugi closes his eyes, just for the briefest moment, it's like Atem is here with him.

So Yugi clutches his pillow, sighing because he wants to be stronger than this but he knows that he needs something to clutch himself to and not feeling alone, and he can't hold onto Atem now, not anymore. Yugi breathes heavy breaths, closes his eyes again, lets Atem's aura settle around him, rocking him, soothing him. And just like in a lullaby, Yugi eventually finds himself asleep.

* * *

When Atem turns his back to his friends, he knows it will be forever. He knows he will not meet Jonouchi's grin, Honda's playful scold, Anzu's sweet voice again. He knows he will not cross the violet blue of Yugi's irises never, ever again. And Atem knows that if he were to turn his back now, just for the quickest moment, just to bid everyone farewell, he would not be able to turn it again and walk away from his friends. He knows he would not be able to leave.

When Atem crosses the threshold to the world of the dead then, he does so looking at the blue of Seth's eyes, at Mana's playful smile, at Shimon, at his uncle, at his priests. Because it's easier. He looks at his father. He had forgotten his father's face in all these years; the shadows had deprived him of one of his most cherished memories, but it was the shadows who gave it back to Atem, first of a lifetime of memories, during the ultimate battle against the Thief King.

When Atem steps inside the light of the door to the afterline, he isn't angry with the Thief King anymore. The Thief King ruined his father's life with the echo of a curse pharaoh Akenamkanon wasn't still aware of. The Thief King ruined Atem's short life, forcing him to search inside himself for courage and wisdom he didn't know he had and that he wasn't supposed to show until he reached his adulthood. The Thief King spread desolation and death in the land that Atem loved more than his very soul. But now, what Atem feels for the Thief King is pity. The anger has flown away like dust in the morning breeze. And the young pharaoh, twice dead, says a silent prayer to Osiris asking the god to be merciful on Bakura's soul.

When Atem's coat swirls behind his back and he is no longer Yami no Yugi, Atem feels at peace.

He knows who he is, he knows who he was: he has lived two lives and found grief and happiness in both of them. He feels that there are no more chains to hold him back to the realm of the livings because Atem has no remorses. Only one, big regret: something he had wished to tell his partner, but now it's too late for that. Even so, Atem still feels at peace, because maybe it was for the best and he puts all the trust he is capable of on his partner's shoulders, because he is strong and he will make it. Even if concerned, Atem just knows. And the smallest kind of smile twists the corner of lips upwards.

When Atem can hear the sound of stone against stone and the light engulfs him and he knows there's no turning back at this point and that the slabs of the doors are closing forever, the once pharaoh can't hear his friends anymore. _This is it_, he murmurs to himself, and he says a prayer for the second time that day. He prays for his friends and for Yugi, for them to find happiness. And his ghost heart is so filled with gratitude that Atem can feel it fluttering inside his chest. This time Atem knows he is not going to forget, not even in a thousand years, not even in fifty thousand lifetimes will he forget about the moments he has shared, along with a body, with his partner.

It's been a three thousand year journey, a long, long march to that final destination and Atem is finally happy.

The young pharaoh is smiling when the doors close with a loud thud.

However, the smiles on the face of his family and friends of another lifetime can't erase Atem's sadness, fear, guilt, longing. Nobody said leaving all behind would be easy. For Atem, dying again is not simple; it's just the right thing to do. And he knows he will miss everyone.

His emotions are all for his friends, and all for Yugi. Will he be alright? Will he be happy? Will he be angry with Atem once he comes back home? Or when he will come back from school crying and Atem will no longer be by his side to comfort him?

There are so many unknowns in Yugi's future. But one thing is for sure: it is Yugi's. And Atem is not a part of it anymore.

Atem takes one step toward his family; his father is reaching his arms out for him, smiling. Another step and he knows that this is finally the life and the time where he belongs, because everything has fallen into place now. Atem finally reaches the old pharaoh and the man wraps his arms around his son's shoulders and Atem knows: this is home, this is future, this is right, this is meant to be. This is goodbye.

* * *

The first week, Yugi is a mess.

The memories are hunting him and they don't want to leave him alone. It's like the curse of the millennium items never left and Yugi starts to realize what the boulder on Atem's father's heart must have felt like. Clutching to his pillow is not even barely enough and Yugi feels alone, so much more because he is surrounded by friends and a caring family but they are not enough.

The first week Yugi can barely eat, barely force himself out of the bed and into a daily routine he has established for the sole purpose of convincing himself that life can, _is_ going on. After day two, he stops forcing smiles, because he can't fool even his own reflection. Yugi feels so alone he can't even try to comfort his friends or Anzu, because Yugi is there but at the same time he is not: Yugi is trapped between two worlds in a limbo of uncertainties, until the time he will be ready to take the road to one of them.

The first month is the month of change.

It is a slow and painful development and Yugi can feel something dying inside of him at each new dawn and each new sunset. The scent of Atem, his pervasive aura, is slowly dissipating but Yugi can still touch it if he closes his eyes, the nights he clutches to his pillow for dear life. But he has learned that it is not safe to do so, because each step he takes to get himself nearer Atem, is a step Yugi is taking away from future and from healing.

The first month is the month of acceptance. Of the true, real acceptance of what has happened and can't happen anymore. It's discernment, discriminating the past from the future and starting to realize, to Yugi's surprise and guilt, that in the present tense of his limbo, Yugi is now looking forward to tomorrow and not to yesterday. Because when Yugi stares at his ceiling at nights now, tears prickling the inside of his eyes, he is not pleading for the comfort of Atem's arms around his shoulders. He is pleading for tomorrow to come soon, for the day to break out. Because he fears the darkness and being alone just as much as Yami no Yugi did, and the light is hope, is family, is life, is future.

The first birthday without Atem comes as a liberation, a newfound and blissful peace of mind.

It's the fourth of June, school is over, life is calling out Yugi's name for him to claim his place in its inextricable labyrinth of roads and twists. And Yugi is eager to answer this call because after months he finally knows he has, he _wants_ a future.

Is this recovery? Is this the final stage? Yugi doesn't know, because he knows he has not cut out the umbilical cordon that still binds him to Atem. And maybe he never will.

Because when Yugi comes back home after his party, where he ate cake, laughed with his friends, unwrapped gifts, made promises and showed gratitude, he can still feel it lingering in the air. Like a year ago. In the way the front door opens to reveal the artificially lighten living room. In the way his mother sing songs her welcome back from the couch, in the way Yugi smiles his answer and puts off his shoes and steps in. This familiarity. This memory, as ancient as the world. Remembrance of a past life that once belonged to Yugi, and yet it did not, because it belonged to _another_ Yugi.

Yugi would need to burn his house to ashes to stop feeling that aura, and even so, he knows it would not be enough. Because even after a year has passed, Atem is everywhere, attached to Yugi's very soul like a parasite, refusing to ever let go. Yet, it's not invasive nor intrusive, not pushing for Yugi to let it in and rule his life all over again. It's just the echo of experience, of past. Like the memories Yugi has from kindergarten or Yugi's memories of his grandmother. And as long as he will have these memories, Yugi will never, ever be alone.

When Yugi reaches the bathroom and stands in front of the sink, his toothbrush in one hand and the paste in the other, he looks at himself in the mirror.

His hair is messier, but the way it frames is face is anything but childish. The once rich blond and violet have now assumed a duller shade. His bangs are perhaps longer than a year ago. Yugi's shoulders are flat and square, his demeanor resembles the one of a pharaoh: Yugi is no longer afraid of showing his self and his chest at the world. Yugi has grown up.

But in the way Yugi's hands let go the toothbrush to move a bang away from his cheeks, in the way _wine red irises_ are looking at Yugi through the silvery reflection, Yugi can feel Atem rushing through his veins again. And he is_ there_, in that very moment, only for that very moment, smiling tenderly in the mirror, his scarlet gaze shining with pride. Pride for Yugi.

_This is it_, Yugi thinks, _this is farewell_.

And when the red of the irises cedes to violet blue as Yugi looks into them again, one single tear strolls down his cheek. But this time, Yugi is smiling.

* * *

The world of the dead is a realm of absolute light. So much light it never truly leaves, not even after the sun has set under the line of the horizon. It's night, but the light is still trying to penetrate the dark blue sky and the stars are like many little holes on the surface of a huge, big blanket. And all this light is both reassuring and overwhelming; it takes Atem a lot of time to get accustomed to it. But all this light is like a reward for his millennia of darkness, the countless years he has spent in the shadows. So Atem never truly loathe the light.

In the world of the dead, you can't define freedom. Everyone is free and happily quiet per se. Freedom is for granted, is per se, is simply there. It's so much Atem can't really say he is free from any constraint or bound because he is slowly forgetting what being unfree feels like. If being unfree is even possible. Here, everything is as it is, everything is true to itself, there is no need to ask questions or to make wishes. There is no need for language.

The world of the dead is the world of complete peace. Of mind and senses. And the longer Atem spends his days walking down white corridors and silently speaking with the people he loves, the more his memories about his previous lives fade away. He forgets the sorrowful memories first; they seem just so unreal and impossible in this realm of perfection. It is almost as if they never happened. And then Atem forgets about languages and faces, sounds and gestures. His friends from his last life are now just emotions in his heart, each one of a different color, of a different melody, as beautiful and cherished in Atem's mind as they have never been before.

It is a sweet, lulling amnesia. A game Atem is glad to lose, only not yet.

Because he wants to watch over the person that has been his little light a little more, watch over Yugi and make sure he is recovering and healing, and that he is, _will be_ happy.

Because he loved Yugi. And he still does, in the amazing, terribly different way you can love someone in the realm of the dead. He loved Yugi too much to tell him. Because Atem knew that, once he left, the only thing he could do was watching Yugi mourning over something he could never have. So Atem cut their link like a gardener a bud, before it could blossom into something more.

And now Atem watches, with his heart and mind.

Watches Yugi as he comes back home the first day, and when Yugi collapses on the bed, crying himself to sleep, Atem is with him reassuring him that it will be alright.

He watches Yugi when the first week he is too shattered to eat or to smile, and it feels horrible because Atem loved Yugi's smile above everything else. But he still keeps watching, keeps sending prayers and mumbles and telling Yugi it will be alright.

And Yugi is strong, stronger than Atem could ever hope to be. He is strong when he fights against the memories and struggles for his future. And strong when he understands that the memories are not the enemy and he can finally wake up one day with a smile on his lips. Yugi is strong when he doesn't cry himself to sleep anymore, when he doesn't wait for the night to clutch himself to the pillow and when he waits for the day and for new beginnings to come and he is ready to greet them with the heart of a pharaoh. A true pharaoh.

Time flows in a strange, monotonous way in the world of the dead, but Atem just knows when the right time has come. Just like a year before. The time for goodbyes.

When Atem is finally able to look into Yugi's eyes again, it's like a whole lifetime has passed since the last time their gaze met. Yugi doesn't look like a child, doesn't act like one, doesn't run away or scream or cry when he lifts his gaze to find Atem's irises looking at him in what should be his own reflection. Red instead of violet.

It feels like a caress when Atem brushes away Yugi's locks. And Atem is proud of his partner and in the way Yugi's lips twinkle upwards and his gaze doesn't leave Atem's, the once pharaoh knows that Yugi is, will be happy.

_This is it_. Atem and Yugi's words echo in both their hearts at the same time, a flawless synchrony that tastes both frightfully and wondrously. The scarlet evanesces from Yugi's eyes: it will never come back. But Atem is happy: this is as it should be.

_This is farewell._

* * *

_o-O-o_

_Trying to picture life in the world of the dead has been both terribly amusing and difficult! _

_Anyways, I know I should be working on chapter 2 of 2AM! I am, I swear (and thank you for the reviews, it surprised me to see other people wanted a sequel) but this plot bunny was like a lightning: I listened to the song, I realized it fitted puzzleshipping *perfectly*, I started plotting and here you have it: a new oneshot for you._

_This was *so* fun to write, it's too bad it's finished… but I'll go working on 2AM now, enough with the angst._

_I edited this by myself, some things are intentional but grammar mistakes and typos make me want to hide myself under the sofa so if you spot any, please, tell me so that I can stop cringing._

_Also, feedback is always appreciated so that I can improve and write more and nicer stories, _

_Thank you for reading!_


End file.
